"No Justin.  The other one next to it."  Halle pointed out.

Justin leaned up and reached for the box and brought it down and handed it to Hallie.

"I think that is all that was on my list." she said as she crossed off some writing on a piece of paper she was holding. "Now all we have to do is checkout and get me some lunch."

"Get you some lunch?" Justin asked. "Didn't we just come in here to get all these groceries because Laura's fridge is empty? And now you want me to take you out to eat?"

"Yeah. All this shopping has made me hungry." Hallie answered as she sorted through the items in the cart one last time.

Justin shook his head and laughed. "Okay. I think there is a Wendy's on the way home."

Hallie's mouth dropped open in dismay at the thought of him taking her to get fast food. But deep down inside she knew that was exactly what she wanted.

As Justin was about to start the car, Hallie stopped him. "Isn't that Rachel over there at that cafe?"

"Yeah it looks like her a little bit." he said as he looked back down to start the ignition.

Hallie started to put on her seatbelt. "Who is that she is with?"

Justin looked again. "Some chick...Looks like one of those hospital nurses judging by those green pants and white shoes she has on."

"I wonder what that's all about." she thought out loud.

"Probably some actress from some doctor show she might be appearing in." he said as he adjusted his rearview mirror.

Hallie watched the two women closely as Justin pulled out of the parking lot. Instead of driving in the direction of the cafe, Justin turned left and headed towards the main highway never giving Rachel and her friend a second thought.

When they returned to Laura's they found her in the kitchen typing away at her laptop and talking to Rick on the phone.  "No, I'll explain everything to you later, okay? I'm just so sorry about what happened..."

Justin walked up behind her and leaned down and kissed her on the cheek and walked over and placed the bags of groceries on the counter. Laura wrapped up her phone call and finally hung up. She turned around to watch Justin as he took the groceries out of their bags and started to put them away.

"You don't have to do that, Justin." she said as she started to stand up to go and help him.

He put his hand up and stopped her. "Just chill. I want to. This way you won't complain when I raid the fridge later."

Laura smiled and sat back down. Hallie walked into the kitchen with three more bags of food. "Guess who we saw today?" she said.

"Who?" Laura asked as she turned around to finish typing something on the laptop. Justin looked at Hallie and motioned for her not to mention Rachel.

"Ummm....Well I think it was Grant Hill's wife, Tamia....But Justin told me that Tamia looked finer than the woman I was pointing out." she lied.

"Oh. Well Justin is pretty good with staring females up and down, so he was probably right." Laura stated plainly. "Hey what time is your flight tonight?"

"I'm pretty sure it's at 6:30. Why?"

"I was just wondering if I could get something done before I take you. But that is going to cut it rather close. That only gives me a few hours. It's 2 right now."

"Well me or Joey can take her if you are going to be too busy." Justin interrupted.

"No it's not that I am going to be too busy. I just wanted to see if I was going to have enough time to talk to Rick about everything that happened last night. He is also leaving today and I wanted to get that settled before he left, but I can always call and explain it later."

"Well I kinda told Joey that he could take me to the airport anyway, Laura."

"Oh."

Hallie suddenly felt guilty and tried to explain. "Well we didn't get much of a chance to hang out last night with everything that happened so I promised him an early dinner before I caught my flight."

"Ooooh." Justin and Laura said simultaneously as they smiled towards one another.

Hallie's face started to turn red. "Shut up."

Justin took out a bundle of toilet paper and asked Laura where it was suppose to go. She pointed out the spare bedroom as she continued to talk to Hallie.  Justin went and took the toilet paper upstairs. He came back out and leaned over the banister. "Yo, do you know you have birthday gifts in here that you haven't opened yet?" he yelled down.

"Oh shit! I completely forgot." she yelled up. "I'll open them later."

"The hell you will. You didn't even open my gift. Get your ass up here so you can at least see what I got you."

Laura dragged herself up the steps with Hallie right behind her, pushing her up the stairs. When she turned the corner to the spare bedroom she noticed all the gifts on the bed.

"Damn." she said as she stood there in awe.

Laura began to open her gifts one by one torturing Justin as she purposely went and opened every gift but his first. Justin finally got sick and tired of her games and started to open up his gift to her. Laura snatched the little box out of his hand. "Justin, stop!" she fought.

Laura ripped off whatever wrapping paper was left and slowly opened up the small white velvet box. Her mouth fell open in shock. "Oh wow, Justin! You didn't have to do this."

"I wanted to." he said as he leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. Laura kissed him back and wrapped her arms around him. "Thank you so much." she said as she hugged him tightly.

"Well, Damn...What did he get you? Keys to a Bentley or something?" Hallie asked as she leaned up from her chair.

Laura took the small ring out of the box and handed it to Hallie. She looked down and noticed the shimmering ring with its ten tiny diamonds in the shape of a single musical note. Hallie couldn't understand what was so spectacular about the ring that it would bring that much emotion out of her best friend until Laura explained. She pulled out her necklace from her shirt and leaned forward so Hallie could see it. "I got this a while ago and I had always wanted a ring to match it. I didn't think anyone was listening to me the night I brought it up." she said. She smiled as she slipped it onto her finger. "I had no idea you would remember something as small as that, Justin."

"You remember what I told you right?"

"Yeah."

"Well then you should know by now." he smiled.

Hallie wanted to ask what he had told her, but decided it must not be something he wanted her to know if he didn't just come out and say it.  Laura looked over and noticed there were three more gifts in the corner she hadn't opened yet. Justin went and got them and brought them over to her. By the look on his face they seemed to be rather heavy boxes. Just as he was placing them down on the bed, the doorbell rang.  "I'll get it." he said as he walked out the door.

Hallie stood up and started to pick up all the torn wrapping paper from the bed and floor. She carried it out of the room to look for a large bag to put it in. She could hear Justin downstairs talking.  "I'm just sayin' that it ain't my house, so I can't just let you walk up in here, JC."

Laura was still in the spare bedroom trying to open the large UPS box. She looked around the room for something sharp to break through the tape with, but had no luck. She walked out into the hallway and noticed Hallie looking over the railing at something. She walked up next to her and could see Justin and JC at the door.  "I just want to give her this box. It's the rest of her things. I also need to give her a few of these cd's to work on. Unless, of course, I am interrupting something."

Justin rolled his eyes and was about to respond when Laura chimed in and said, "Let him in Justin."

JC walked in past Justin and looked upstairs towards Laura and noticed Hallie standing beside her. There was silence as the four of them looked around at one another. Finally Hallie said, "Justin, Can you drive me over to the mall for a bit? I need to pick up a few things before I leave tonight."

"Sure." he answered as he looked up at Laura to make sure she was ok. She nodded and smiled at him.

Once Hallie and Justin were gone, Laura motioned for JC to follow her. "We can talk about the project while I finish cleaning up." she said as she walked up the stairs. JC followed behind her and agreed. When they walked into the spare bedroom he noticed there was wrapping paper all over the place along with three unopened boxes.

"You just now opening your gifts?"

"Yeah. Things have been hectic lately to say the least. Justin noticed them and forced me to open them so I could see what he got me."

"Yeah. That ring you had wanted." he said as he sat down in a nearby chair.

"Yeah...Dammit."

"What."

"I forgot to go downstairs to get a knife to open this box with."

JC reached into his back pocket and pulled out his keychain. There was a small pen knife set attached to it. He slid out the part with the sharp blade and walked over to open the box for her.

"Thanks." she said as he backed away so she could see what was inside. "I'm trying to figure out who this is from."

JC looked on the side of the box and noticed a sticker and read it aloud. "It says Stanley and Armstrong."

"Sounds like an attorney's office. I wonder what the hell they would be sending me." she said as she opened the box.

She sifted through all the peanuts and grabbed the first thing she felt and paused when JC started to speak.   "Look, I just wanted to drop off the rest of your things and tell you that there are 7 songs on here that I had been working on. I just wanted you to take a listen and see where you think its going. And pick out what you think are the top 5 out of the group."

Laura continued to listen as she slowly began to lift the item out of the box. It felt like a statue or figurine. Her eyes locked in on JC's as she said, "Well that's fine JC. Just leave it on the chair and I will get to it later. I wouldn't want you to have to stay in my presence any longer than you have to.

"Dammit, I don't want to figh-....." JC was about to argue back until he looked down at what she had pulled out of the box. Laura didn't notice what she had pulled out of the box until she saw his reaction. She looked down to see why. It was a large golden statue that stood on top of a black platform and seemed to sparkle with any touch of light.

JC started to say, "That's a-"

"Grammy." Laura finished his statement and looked down at it confused as to why someone would send it to her. "Is it real?" she asked.

JC walked over to the bed and gently took it from Laura's hands. He carefully studied the statue and finally handed it back to her and said, "It's genuine, Laura."

Laura sifted through the box for some type of explanation and pulled out three more awards covered in bubble wrap. JC picked up a birthday card that had fallen from the box with a bunch of packing peanuts. Laura was still shocked and confused. JC opened the card and read it out loud.

Dear Ms. Charles,

These awards were received by your father for some of his achievements throughout his career. We are a small law firm that acquired these from him before he died. It was specifically stated in his last will and testament that you receive these on your 25th birthday along with the letter that we have enclosed. Please accept this gift with our warmest wishes for a wonderful day. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us at any time at the address below.

Sincerely,

Attorney's Stanley and Armstrong

They both were silent and nothing that had happened in the past few days seemed to matter anymore. Laura sat on the bed staring at the four Grammy awards sitting there. JC handed her the card and the envelope with her name on it.

Laura looked down at the envelope and tears immediately began to fill her eyes. "It's my father's handwriting."